Slow Cooker French Onion Soup

Week four of the challenge is to cook something inspired by music. All I kept thinking about was "Rock Lobster" by the B-52's. Alas, rock lobsters aren't easy to find in Maryland, in January. After doing a little googleing, I decided to use "The Onion Song", by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell as my inspiration. It's also a super cold day here, so I really want some soup for lunch.

Here is the cast of characters...

3 small yellow onions, sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
4 tbsp of butter, cut into chunks
1 tsp cooking sherry
1 tsp Worcestershire
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp dried parsley
1 bay leaf
bread for croutons
shredded mozzarella cheese

Slice the onions and place them on the bottom of the crock.( I used my small slow cooker for this because I'm the only one who is going to be eating this. If you have a lot of onion soup lovers in your house, double or triple the recipe and use a large slow cooker.)

Peel and mince the garlic and sprinkle that on top of the onions. Then add the butter. Set this up to cook on high for about four hours, stirring every hour. The onions will get nice and caramelized.

After four hours, add the sherry, Worcestershire, thyme, parsley, and bay leaf. Continue cooking on high for 2 hours.

Ladle the soup into a bowl, then top it with your croutons and some mozzarella cheese. Usually, you should broil this for a few minutes to get the cheese nice and brown. I didn't do that because I don't know if my bowls are oven safe and I didn't want it to break.

I made this Tuesday when it was super cold outside. I wished it had more flavor. It was good, but it lacked the richness you usually want in French Onion Soup.

Slow Cooked Short Ribs and Mushrooms

Week 8 is slow cooking, so I decided to use my crock pot. This looked yummy, smelled yummy and tasted yummy. Too bad it felt weird. I have to blame the butcher for this fail. Every bite we took felt like it had tiny shards of bone in it, so we all finally gave up and got something else to eat. :(

I swear it looked better in person. It just didn't photograph well. Anyway, here is what I did Wednesday morning...

I diced a yellow onion and put that in the crock.

 I quartered a package of baby bellas and a half a package of button mushrooms and added them.

I minced about 8 cloves of garlic and added that along with some fresh cracked black pepper and a few sprigs of fresh rosemary.

Next I cut the short ribs into single pieces, then floured them and did a quick sear to brown them.

I added 4 cups of beef broth, then started laying the short ribs in the crock.

I topped it all with a few more sprigs of rosemary, put on the top, set it to low and went to work.

I came home to this...

Looking and smelling good, I decided to debone it.

I skimmed the fat off the top of the liquid, added the mushrooms and onions to the meat, and decided to reduce the sauce that was left.

I steamed some rice and made a carrot and ginger puree to serve with the short ribs, and then I settled in for what I thought would be a nice dinner. Too bad there were bone shards in every bite. The whole thing was a huge waste of time and money. Can you tell I'm still bitter?

Slow Cooker Left Overs/Suprise Soup

What do you have in the fridge that's left over from last week? What do you have in the freezer that you really need to use before freezer burn sets in? Lets put it all in the slow cooker and see what happens!

Yesterday I was trying to think of something to make for dinner tonight, so I started rooting around the freezer. That's when I decided to use up some things that needed to be used before they went bad. I had some bone in, skin on chicken thighs that had been in the freezer for a few months. I put them in a gallon size plastic bag and started adding stuff. I had about 1 1/2 cups of gravy from Thanksgiving that I had frozen in ice cube trays, so I added that to the bag. Then I started looking at my leftover, fresh veggies. I had carrots, some green beans, half a yellow onion, and two red potatoes, so I cut them up and put them in the bag. I added a little minced garlic and a tablespoon of dried thyme, but I wanted something more. I also had an open bag of peas in the freezer, so that went in the bag too. Next I added a healthy dose of freshly cracked black pepper, and I figured that was enough. Plus the bag was now too full to close.

This morning I dumped it all in the crock, but then I decided that it needed more liquid, so I also added a jar of gravy that was in my pantry. I set it on low and went about my day.

Eight hours later I checked the slow cooker. It was looking pretty good, but I decided to remove the chicken so that I could take off the skin and de-bone it. It basically fell apart. I put the de-boned chicken back in the crock and mixed it all up. Mmmm, things are starting to look pretty good in there!

Next I started a pot of rice to give it a little more body, then I skimmed the fat off the top. I added the juice from a lemon and called it "Chicken Stoup". It's not quite a soup, but not quite a stew.

This wasn't exactly impressive cuisine, but it was tasty and filling.

Slow Cooked Pork Chops with Sauerkraut

I'm kind of in love with my Crock Pot right now. Today is the third time I've used it this week. My dinner plans had to change up a bit at the last minute when I discovered that my butternut squash was rotting on the shelf. I had to think fast and come up with a new plan, so I started looking around the fridge and pantry, and this is what I've come up with...

4 boneless pork chops (You can use bone-in, but this is what I had in the freezer.)
1 2lb bag of sauerkraut
2 large apples, peeled, cored and diced
1 medium yellow onion, halved, peeled and sliced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup of apple cider or juice

I was going to do this in two slow cooker liners because my husband hates sauerkraut, but after I prepped it all, I discovered that one of the bags was leaking. I started by putting the frozen pork chops in the bag, 3 in one bag, and 1 in another. The bag with three chops got the whole bag of kraut.

I added some sliced onion to each bag.

Then I added the apples.

Next I put in some garlic.

Then I added 1 cup of apple cider to the large bag, and a half cup to the small bag. When I went to put the large bag in the crock I noticed the leak, so I dumped the whole mess into the crock, then put the small bag in on one side, with the whole top of the bag sticking out of the top.

Add salt and pepper to taste, then cook it on low for about 8 hours. I served this with sauteed kale with bacon and mashed potatoes.

 And Hubby's without the kraut...

Chinese slow cooked short ribs

This is my second post this week for 52 weeks of cooking. I made fried rice earlier in the week, but I really wanted to try to make something that had a bit more of an authentic Chinese flavor profile to it as well. I've also never made short ribs, so I figured I'd give them a shot. I know this isn't a true Chinese recipe, but I looked at a bunch of recipes on line and took elements of several to come up with this, and I adapted it to cook in the crock pot.

I really need better plates :)

1 medium yellow onion, sliced
8 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp Chinese 5 spice
1/2 cup soy sauce (low sodium)
1/8 cup light brown sugar
veg oil for frying
1/2 cup flour
salt and pepper
4 lbs short ribs
2/3 cup of plum wine
2/3 rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp chili garlic sauce
3 cups of beef broth
1 bunch of scallions

The first thing I did was slice the onions and put them in the crock pot.

Next I added the minced garlic, Chinese five spice, soy sauce and brown sugar.

 Now it's time to get to work on the ribs. Slice them into single ribs.

Put the flour onto a large plate, then coat the ribs all over with flour.

Put about 1/2 to 3/8 of an inch of vegetable oil into a frying pan. When it's hot, start adding the ribs. Turn them often, and just cook them long enough to brown on all sides.

As they brown add them to the crock.

Now add the plum wine, rice wine vinegar, chili garlic sauce and beef broth.

 Cook this on low for 8-10 hours. When I got home from work I added some scallions and let them cook with it while I made some steamed broccoli and white rice.

And here is the finished product with some additional scallions for garnish. This was so tender and flavorful!